Vodafone Ukraine in 2022: Impact of War, Network Reconstruction and Rapid Digitization of Subscribers

71% of Data users, about 1.5 growth of data usage

Vodafone Ukraine reports on the results of its work for the full year 2022. The company maintains business stability in 2022. Despite the impact of the war on revenues, the company increased the amount of investments in the development and maintenance of the country's telecom infrastructure. At the same time, Vodafone managed to increase business efficiency and the penetration of digital services.

The company's revenue in 2022 made up UAH 19.8 billion. The 2% decrease compared to last year is due to a decrease in the number of mobile users. The majority of mobile users in the east and south of the country are Vodafone customers. Warfare and network outage in the occupied territories and in the war zone y influenced the customer base.  As a result Vodafone lost the most subscribers – 3.5 million – among mobile operators of Ukraine. By the end of 2022, the number of Vodafone customers in Ukraine made up 15.4 million.

More than 2.2 million customers remain abroad and continue to use Vodafone services. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Vodafone has been supporting Ukrainians seeking protection in European countries and providing free access to the "Affordable Roaming" service in most tariffs. As part of the service, 10GB of mobile Internet and 100 minutes for conversations with subscribers in Ukraine and in the host country are available, provided that the Ukrainian service package is paid for. 87% of all customers of roaming services use the "Affordable Roaming" offer.

The OIBDA indicator increased by 3% and amounted to UAH 11.3 billion. OIBDA margin increased by 2.5 percentage points to 56.9%. Vodafone's net profit in 2022 made up UAH 1.1 billion. It was negatively impacted by currency exchange losses, which were caused by 34% Ukrainian hryvna’s denomination against US dollar.

Vodafone has increased capital investments - they amounted to UAH 3.6 billion in 2022. That made it possible for Vodafone engineers to restore the destroyed infrastructure, promptly repair the equipment, developed the network and ensure the availability of communication in conditions of power failure. Thus, during the year, the company's engineers returned connectivity to about 800 villages and towns and made about 2,960 repair trips, including those close to the front line.

Vodafone proceeded developing the network. In 2022, the company's specialists paid special attention to the expansion of capacity and coverage in regions of mass migration. In total, during the year of the war, 4,000 4G base stations were put on the air.

The company devoted significant resources to ensuring the availability of communication in conditions of power failure: Vodafone purchased 414 mobile generators, the company's engineers replaced 24,712 batteries and used 519 tons of fuel to generate energy for the network during outages. Today, 88% of the sites are operating normally.

The active development of the LTE network affected the number of users of digital services – it increased to 71%. The use of data services has also increased. Thus, by the end of 2022, a Vodafone subscriber uses an average of 8.4 GB of mobile Internet per month, which is almost 1.5 times more than a year earlier. This growth led to an 8% increase in ARPU - in 2022, the average income per user was UAH 90.6 per month.

The company has not stopped supporting the country and Ukrainians. From the first day of the full-scale invasion, Vodafone has made significant efforts to ensure that millions of citizens can stay in touch with their loved ones and access information during these difficult times. The discount on services used by ~14 million Vodafone subscribers in Ukraine and abroad during the past year is estimated at a total of UAH 1.19 billion.

Vodafone has launched a number of social and charitable initiatives. Among them – humanitarian and direct financial aid, the purchase of ambulances and medical equipment, country support, including innovation and digitalization contributions through the UNITED24 platform, the launch of "The League of Heat" charity challenge to provide heating pumps for maternity hospitals and "Save Ukrainian culture" – joint project with the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine – aiming at preservation and restoration of Ukrainian cultural heritage affected by the war. The total volume of Vodafone's social investments in 2022 amounted to UAH 1.3 billion.